Home / Science / Earthquake Sensors Now Track Space Debris Reentry
Earthquake Sensors Now Track Space Debris Reentry
23 Jan
Summary
- Seismometers, typically used for earthquakes, can detect sonic booms from falling space junk.
- New method predicts reentry trajectories using seismic data, tested with Chinese spacecraft.
- This approach could aid in locating and recovering toxic space debris more effectively.
Space junk reentry poses a growing environmental and safety threat, with old satellites and spacecraft parts entering Earth's atmosphere multiple times daily. When these objects burn up, they can release harmful substances and, if they survive, contaminate the environment or cause collisions. Current tracking methods struggle with sudden deorbiting and debris breakup during reentry.
Scientists from Johns Hopkins University and Imperial College London have developed a new technique using seismometers to detect the sonic booms created by space debris. This method repurposes earthquake-detecting instruments to identify the shock waves produced when objects exceed the speed of sound. This approach was validated by analyzing the reentry of China's Shenzhou-15 spacecraft in April 2024 over California, showing a different predicted trajectory than US Space Force radar data.
The researchers aim to integrate this tool into civil monitoring pipelines, enabling rapid location and recovery of dangerous space residue. This could significantly improve response efforts for incidents involving toxic fallout, similar to the 1978 Kosmos 954 incident or the 2025 SpaceX Starship explosion. While promising, experts note that the method may not detect all debris and would likely serve as a complementary tool alongside existing tracking systems.
